


Busy Days, Late Nights

by 1863



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21628180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1863/pseuds/1863
Summary: Charon is always a professional when he works the front desk, no matter what a guest says or does.Winston isn't as happy about that as he could be.
Relationships: Charon/Winston (John Wick)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Busy Days, Late Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



> For the song prompt [Lover](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvUAzpn48xA) \- Taylor Swift.

Inoffensive holiday music plays in the lobby as Winston takes up position in the lounge. He doesn’t usually have time to do this but he always makes an exception for this time of year, a hotel full of guests with lowered inhibitions from too much holiday cheer and a slow period for High Table business combining to create a perfect — and deeply annoying — storm.

He watches as Charon greets another guest with a smile and a nod. The smile is only a small one but no less charming for its size, and Winston narrows his eyes when the guest in question — a young man with perfect teeth and a conspicuously _modern_ hairstyle — leans against the counter and smiles back. He sets his payment down as Charon looks away to confirm the reservation, his gaze running over the admittedly fine figure Charon cuts in his bespoke suit. A blatant once-over, Winston thinks with irritation, and a blatantly appreciative one at that. 

Charon catches the guest in the act when he glances up from the monitor. The young man makes no attempt to hide his thoughts, ducking his head and looking up at Charon from under his eyelashes. He says something Winston can’t hear but can guess at easily enough, especially when he points to the mistletoe hanging above the concierge desk. Winston isn’t sure who put it there but once he finds out, they are most certainly getting fired.

Whatever the man says makes Charon go still, and when he presses on, heedless of the way Charon stares at him, unblinking and silent, Winston knows he’s even more foolish than his ridiculous haircut would suggest.

Still, Charon is nothing if not professional, and he smiles again and gives a response that makes the guest laugh. But then Charon reaches across the counter to take the coin, and the cuff of his shirtsleeve rides up, and the young man does something that would have gotten him shot — or worse — had he not been on Continental grounds. 

He wraps his fingers around Charon’s bare wrist.

Charon goes still again and looks up, but this time, even a fool would be able to sense the danger they’re in. 

He pushes his glasses up with his free hand before he responds. This, too, Winston can’t hear, but it makes the man let go immediately, and take a hasty step back. Charon gives him a key card and smiles a third time, and even from the other end of the lobby Winston can see that it’s absolutely Arctic. 

Another guest comes up, then another and another, in a seemingly endless stream — checking in or checking out, or making use of Charon’s skills as a Continental concierge. Some are in a hurry, barely registering Charon’s face; some are distracted and don’t look up from their phones at all. But a significant number of others are like the young man from before, and they’re the ones that set Winston’s teeth on edge, the ones who make more than one martini end up in his tensed, stiff hands.

Those are the ones who see what Winston saw himself, long ago. Their faces flush when Charon offers them a polite smile; their hands linger too long when Charon gives them their keys. They’re the ones who pointedly look at the mistletoe, who make conversation when they don't need to, who toss their hair and laugh too loud and stare when they think Charon isn’t looking. All things considered, Winston can’t really blame them for it, but it’s still… unpleasant to witness. 

It’s late by the time Winston’s had enough and makes a strategic retreat, and later still when Charon finally follows him upstairs. 

“Busy day?” Winston asks, aiming for bland. The look Charon gives him, however, makes it clear that he missed his target by a rather wide margin. 

“I suspect you already know the answer to that,” Charon replies, voice dry, as he takes off his jacket and tie and rolls up his sleeves. Winston is momentarily distracted — Charon in anything other than a full suit is a rare sight, activities done with no clothing at all notwithstanding. For Charon, this is maddeningly déshabillé. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Winston says, when he finally manages to look up from Charon’s newly-bared forearms. 

Charon says nothing, barely even raising his eyebrows as he looks at Winson over the frames of his glasses. 

The silence goes on and on and Winston holds out for as long as he can but really, he knows it’s a battle he could never hope to win. He sighs loudly and shakes his head. 

“This isn’t fair,” he complains. “The only person who could out-silence you is Jonathan.” 

He gets a smile for that — a real one, not the kind he gives to guests or even friends, but the kind reserved for Winston alone. They’re only ever given here, in the confines of this suite, where they’re both in relative safety. Or safe from bullets, at least; there are other kinds of danger here, ones that Winston reconciled himself to years ago.

He thinks of the beautiful man whose hand was on Charon’s wrist, of the countless men and women who looked at Charon with heat in their eyes. 

Well, then. Perhaps he isn’t quite as reconciled as he’d thought.

“You don’t truly believe I’d accept any of their offers, do you?” Charon asks. There’s a touch of genuine curiosity in his voice and it makes Winston wince a little. 

“How would I know,” he replies. “An unlikely number of them are quite beautiful, you know. And young. And… limber.” 

“If that was all I wanted,” Charon points out, “I wouldn’t end each day here with you.”

Winston can’t quite suppress his reaction to that, so he tries to bluster right past it instead. 

“Well,” he allows, “I am very rich, you know.”

Charon steps closer. “I am not without funds of my own.”

“And powerful,” Winston adds, watching warily as Charon keeps closing the distance between them. “I'm very powerful, too.”

“Yes, you are,” Charon agrees. “But so are all Managers.” He gets to within arm’s reach but still he moves closer, until Winston is forced to lean back against the wall. “As are their Concierges.” 

With nowhere left to go — literally and figuratively — Winston finally gives up the pretence and sighs again.

“How on earth do you know me so well?” 

Charon looks thoughtful.

“It has been some 20-odd years,” he points out. “And even you, Winston, cannot maintain a mask for that long.” 

“Your assessment of my skills wounds me,” Winston replies, deadpan. “In any case, you’re wrong.”

“Oh?”

“It’s not the inability to maintain a mask that’s the problem,” Winston says. “It’s that the person watching can see right through them anyway.” He flashes a rueful smile. “Always has. Always will.”

Charon doesn’t deny it. Instead he takes his glasses off, slowly, and even after 20 years it still makes Winston take a breath in anticipation, knowing exactly what it means. 

The kiss is as familiar as it is sweet, and for all its relative chasteness it still simmers with carefully restrained heat. They both know there’s no need to rush things. Not anymore.

Charon glances around the room when he finally pulls back, and without his glasses in the way there’s no way to miss the amusement in his eyes. 

“The walls are bare,” he murmurs. “And there is no tree.” 

Winston tries to pull him into another kiss but Charon’s focus has always been impossible to break, even when they were young and even more so now. He takes Winston’s wandering hands and holds them still against his chest. 

“Winston.”

“All right, yes,” he admits. “I know I said I’d put the decorations up, seeing as I had the whole day free, but —” He stops suddenly and cuts himself off. “Something came up,” he adds. It's an embarrassingly weak excuse, though, and they both know it. “I was busy.”

“Busy defending my honour?” 

There’s a trace of laughter in Charon’s voice and Winston, god help him, actually finds himself trying not to smile at the sound of it.

“Someone has to,” he says. “Who knows what pretty young things with perfect teeth could do to you.”

Charon raises an eyebrow.

“Perhaps they could put up our Christmas decorations before it’s actually Christmas,” he suggests, and gives Winston a rather pointed look.

 _Our decorations_ , Winston thinks. _In our home._

“It’s just as well you only have me, then,” he says, pulling his hands free. “I’m the only one who knows how you like to arrange the tree.” 

His voice is light but his eyes are serious as he leans in again, and this time, Charon doesn’t even try to stop him.


End file.
